A New Peril
by Peenk Phuzipen
Summary: A new chapter in the Daine saga . . . was a science project. but it's not too sciencey.


A New Peril

By: Peenk Phuzipen

"Ouch! Cloud, you can talk to me. You don't have to bite anymore." 

Well, sometimes that's the only way I can get your attention, grumbled the mare. Eighteen-year-old Daine Salmalin smiled. Cloud's horse sense always brought her back to earth.

_-You need to stay on task-_ said Tkaa, the basilik she had befriended five years ago._ -you never know when the stork-man will be back, and you know doesn't like it when you're idle.- _Daine sighed and started brushing Cloud again.

"Never has, never will. He really is a bit over protective," she said. Daine smiled. Any thought of her husband, Numair Salmalin, made her smile. "But I keep feeling as though something is about to happen. The animals feel it too." The first thing she had learned in her training as a mage was how to use her wild magic to speak to animals. 

"Let's go see King Jonathan, then." thirty-two-year-old Numair Salmalin stood in the doorway of the stable.

"Numair!" Daine rushed into his arms and buried her face in his coat. He kissed her forehead. "You're home!"

"Yes, those scholars in Carthak were really beginning to bore me." Daine grinned. She knew that anything that has to do with learning, Numair would go to the Roof of the World to get to it. "Too much reading, and too many serious expressions. I simply had to get away." Daine giggled. 

"How is good 'ol Carthak? Do you approve of how Kaddar is running the palace and country?" inquired Daine.

"Oh, he's doing pretty good, considering all the rebuilding he's had to do." he looked at Daine sternly, but with a twinkle in his eye. They both were remembering three years back, Daine, thinking Numair was dead, went on a rampage through the Carthaki palace riding a mammoth. 

BOOOOM!!!!!! BOOOOM!!!!!!!! A cry went up from every corner of the land, that only Daine could hear. It seemed as though the whole world fell to its knees. Two-leggers from the sound of the explosions, and the animals and plants from the sudden breakdown of their bodies. 

"Great Mithros! What was that?" cried Numair, dumfounded. Daine was still writhing on the ground, the cries of her animal friends resounding in her ears. 

"It's doing something to the animals!" she gasped. "They are calling out to me, but I don't know what to do! Oh, Numair!" 

There were animals dying all around them. The little ones first; the insects, small birds, little reptiles. They would just shrink rapidly and die. She actually saw a bird die at her feet.

I'm getting smaller, Daine, I just feel numb, though. I'm scared, said Cloud in a small voice. That was the first time she'd heard her admit she was afraid. 

_-Perhaps I can be of some assistance. It seems I have been unaffected, being an immortal- _stated Tkaa. He plucked one of his scales and gave it to Numair. -_Hold it up to Cloud. With this you will be able to see the little particles of_ _her body as if they were big.-_

"How amazing," cried Numair. He rapidly began to give names to all he saw. "All the units will be called--cells, the outer covering-the cell membrane, the jelly stuff--cytoplasm, the folded pieces--endoplasmic reticulum, for short--E.R., those tiny things-ribosomes, the little sacs-Golgi bodies," as he was talking, black fire was coming from his other hand and etching what he said on the stone floor. Daine broke in:

"Numair, I don't think now is quite the time to be making wonderful new discoveries and giving them names. We kind of have an emergency." Numair plodded on despite Daine's pleadings.

"those spots are-mitochondria, and those different-colored things-lysosomes, that big spot-it seems to be the brain-nucleus, that outer covering of the nucleus-nuclear membrane, those last little things in the nucleus-chromosomes. There. A important scientific discovery, Daine. You should appreciate it more."

"Numair, we're in the middle of a crisis!!"cried Daine. "We have some more important things to do. What do you see in there besides new criteria to discuss?"

"Well, it seems as though the 'cells' are breaking down. Starting with the 'cell membrane.' No wonder the animals shrunk before they died."

"That bird it was there. Now it has totally disappeared. Horse Lords, what are we going to do?" Daine was close to tears.

"Go to King Jonathan!"

  
  


"Your Majesty, what are we going to do?" asked Daine apprehensively. 

"The mages of the court detect an army from the southwest. We will have to fight them. But our mages also have seen that this army has Zelda as their leader, one of the most hidden and faithful followers of Ozorne. I can assume she wants revenge, and that means you, Daine."

"Well, you're not going to keep me from the battle, that's for sure," stated Daine. 

"Daine," Numair began.

"No, I'm fighting. My friends may not be able to help, but I'm your best with a bow."

"Man your stations!"

Daine grabbed her bow and looked into the distance. There she could see men marching towards them and arriving on ships. When they finally got close enough, she shot. It hit the first man in the heart. She did this for an hour, shooting, reloading, calling for more arrows.

She rested, and Zek, her monkey friend, climbed into her lap. He was half his normal size. He snuggled up to her, and died.

"No!!!" she cried. "No." She grabbed her bow and went back to work. Suddenly, a cry went up from their side. They had won!! The enemy was retreating, and Numair had managed to lift the spell. 

"All in a day's work," whispered Daine. "All in a days' work." 

  
  
  
  


A/N: ok, I don't know if they got married two years after The Realms of the Gods, because I've only read Song of the Lioness and the Immortals. But I assume they did. I really think, in my heart, that 18 is too young to marry, but they probably didn't. Oh well. This was a science project so that's why there's the cell thing. Hoped you liked it. 

  
  


All the characters, (except for Zelda), Tortall, and Carthak don't belong to me. They belong to Tamora Pierce. Don't sue. Please. 


End file.
